Death

I recently found a Rufous-Sided Towhee dead on our front porch. As you can see, they are beautiful birds who visit us only in the summer when they come to the suet feeder. They like the peanut butter best.

I suspect he died when he flew into a window of our sitting room. My friend Rondi who lives in Chicago is going to nail me for this one. She's an advocate of lots of good causes. One of them is protecting birds from flying into windows and dying. Can you cut me a tiny bit of slack for this one?

I didn't see it's stiff body until Kerry told me it was there. I know that a predator would come along and carry it off, but it did not seem a fitting end for such a colorful bird. So I dug a shallow grave in our raised flower bed and buried it among the daffodil bulbs that will rise from the earth in the spring.

A week later my cat Nora was sitting in the window of my sitting room. All of a sudden a red-shouldered hawk smashed into that window. Nora jumped, I jumped and the hawk fell to the deck. He/she shook himself and took off into the big oak tree in front of the house. The hawk thought she was dinner. She never knew that she wasn't.

So death and near-death come in many forms. My former father-in-law and my son's grandfather died on June 22. He simply fell over after watching his favorite kind of movie (western) and having a scotch. He was 90.

A few days ago Ted Kennedy died after a 15-month battle with a terribly ferocious cancer. I feel sad about all of these deaths. Is any of these deaths better than the other? That's not for me to say.